To capture a fairy
by Bagge
Summary: A bad dream turns into a nightmare for Gregory Goyle when he and his father are assigned by the Dark Lord to kill Luna Lovegood. But Gregory is his father’s son and his grandmother’s grandson, he is of the Old People. He knows who he is.
1. I

**To capture a fairy**

_A bad dream turns into a nightmare for Gregory Goyle when he and his father are assigned by the Dark Lord to kill Luna Lovegood. But Gregory is his father's son and his grandmother's grandson, he is of the Old People. He knows who he is. Characters belong to Rowling._

A wood, far from human dwellings. Smells of the wild and the untamed. A camp and a campfire. Just the two of them.

Father and son.

His father looks him over, and approves of what he sees.

A recognition. "You're a man now, son." An obligation. "It's time for you to do a man's work."

A choice.

Gregory Goyle nods, hiding whatever he thinks behind an empty face, as he is used to.

His father grins proudly.

The fire burns.

"Why are we here, father?"

"To kill someone."

"Oh," and then "Why?"

"Because the Dark Lord says so."

"Yeah."

Flames that sputter. The wind in the canopies.

"Her name's Lovegood. You know her?"

"Yeah."

"Tell me."

Silence. Sorting his thoughts before answering.

"Ravenclaw. A year younger than me. Rather weird. Not many friends. Hangs with Potter. Her dad writes 'the Quibbler'."

"Nothing else?"

"Nah."

Nightly creatures that move in the grass around the glade.

"Son... I've told you to use your eyes."

A short nod. "Yeah."

"Who is she, then?"

"She's... one of them."

"One of who, son?"

"One of the Fair People."

"Right, son."

"Why her?"

"Does it matter?"

Hesitation.

"Isn't it enough that the Dark Lord has ordered it?"

A quick answer. "Yeah."

A smile. A large hand on his shoulder. It was the right answer.

"Remember this, lad. Never question the Dark Lord. Not even when we're out here by ourselves. You can't hide anything from him. Only fools try."

"Yeah."

His father looks into the fire, a thoughtful expression.

"Potter has escaped the Dark Lord," he says. "Hidden under fidelius charm. The waif's his secret keeper."

"Oh."

"The Dark Lord thinks Potter's preparing... something. Something bad. Some kind of weapon or suchlike. He has to be stopped."

"Yeah."

"He sent the others. Bella, and Snape and the rat and so on. They failed."

"Yeah."

"Not surprised, son? The Dark Lord's most trusted servants can't capture a single little girl?"

A shrug. "She's of the Fair People."

A nod. "That's right lad. That's why we're here."

"Yeah."

"You know who you are son, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"And why we're sent?"

"Yeah."

"Tell me."

A deep breath, then, "I'm my father's son and my grandmother's grandson. I'm of the Old People. I know who I am. I'm here to claim what's mine."

"Good. Don't you forget it."

"No."

And they sleep.


	2. II

II.

They woke in the morning and ate their breakfast without exchanging many worlds. Meaningless talk had never been encouraged in their family. Then they started to walk. His father didn't explain why they chose the direction they did, and Goyle didn't ask. Perhaps he knew. After some time they came to a small brook, and stopped.

"Is it here?" Goyle asked. His father shook his head. Goyle shrugged.

"Let's go on then." His father shook his head.

"Use your eyes lad. Where are we?"

Shrug. "A brook in the wood."

"What brook? Look closely."

And he did. Bending down, staring, sniffing, tasting the water. Walking the beaches upstream and downstream. After a while he came back to his waiting father, a thoughtful expression.

"Well?"

"Yeah, I see."

"See what, son?"

"Nixies."

A smile. "Very good, son. You know how to pass without trouble, don't you?"

"They can't stop us, can they?"

A laugh, rare enough from his father. "Stop us? Oh no, son. I would like to see the nixie who could stop one of the Old People. But they can delay us in our task. They can put up false leads and lures. They can ensnare you in your sleep. Don't underestimate the Fair People, lad. Now tell me how we pass the brook of the nixies."

"We pay the toll."

"Right." And Gregory's father took a pouch from his belt, and carefully counted to seven acorns, which he dropped one by one in the brook. Then they went on, and the nixies gave them no further trouble.

"The Fair People are powerful, son. But they are vain - and they are easily distracted. We, who are of the Old People, won't be distracted."

"Yeah."

After that, they went uphill. The path was good and solid and easy to walk. Father and son made good speed. It was around noon when the path divided. Two good, solid paths, the one just as fine as the other. Gregory stopped, and his father stopped behind him.

"Which way, father?" he asked.

"Use your eyes son, and then you tell me."

So Gregory used his eyes. He bent down and sniffed the soil. He lumbered up first the one path, then the other. For a while, he stood hesitantly in the fork with his father eyes on him. Then he made up his mind, turned his coat inside out, closed his eyes and walked where his feet told him the path was. He marched straight between the paths, out in the forest and to the small, rarely used track that was hidden there, behind the shrubs and ferns. His father followed him without comment, and when Gregory looked behind him, he couldn't see the roads branching off any longer. The path gave them no further trouble.

"Mist and misdirection and mirror images - that's the realm of the Fair People, son. But the earth and rock and soil and what's real - that's the realm of the Old People."

"Yeah."

After that, the forest grew denser. Bushes and shrubs clung to their feet and slowed them. Low branches lashed after them. Where they walked, the trees leaned closer, as if to block their way.

"They try to block our way," Gregory grunted as he forced his way through the undervegetation, his heavy, steel tipped boots tearing the creepers that tried to hold him back.

"Aye," his father snorted, breaking a branch that had hit his head. "They do that. So you tell me, lad, how do we pass through the fairies' wood?"

Gregory hesitated, ransacking his brain for every scrap of information about his heritage his father had ever given him.

"Iron?" he suggested. His father snorted.

"Sure. If it is in the form of a bloody big cleaver. Use that worthless piece of meat you carry on your shoulders."

"This wood is real," he muttered, his face red from his father's scolding. "It's not trickery or fairy songs or fooling around. It's for real."

"Yeah," his father rumbled, his voice sounding like stone grinding against stone. "And so are we." Gregory looked up at his father's face in surprise. Suddenly, it looked older and harder.

"What do you mean?"

"You tell me, son."

"We can... walk the path of my grandmother," Gregory said carefully. "Only..."

"Only what, lad?"

"Only... you have told me not to."

"Aye, I have. And with good reasons. Walking the path of the Old People is not like switching back and forth from another skin, like that damned rat does - and even he catches something ratty each time. No, lad. If you walk in your grandmother's steps, you'll find that you wear your grandmother's shoes, in a way. If you walk the path of the Old People, you'll feel the earth and the rocks under your feet. You'll hear the woods and the brooks and the sky talk to you. And even if you find your way back to your own weak little self, you'll never be the same again. But you already know that, right?"

"Yeah."

"When did you last walk that path?" Gregory looked down.

"Answer me, lad."

"'bout a month ago... just for a night, in the Forbidden forest..." His father smirked.

"Didn't think I would know, did you? Don't worry, son. I never expected anything else of you. In your age, I fooled around in my mother's garden for weeks, sometimes... Anyway. The _gentry_" - he spat out the word - "hide the waif from us. A human couldn't hope to get through. We'll have to walk the path to find her. But we got to keep our heads. You remember that."

"Yeah."

"Tell me who you are, lad," his father demanded. Gregory took a deep breath and - talking like one who was reciting a text he has learnt by heart - answered his father.

"I'm Gregory Goyle, my father's son and my grandmother's grandson. I'm of the Old People. I know who I am."

"Good, lad."

And they walked on. Walking the path of the Old People. At first, their track could easily be followed by broken branches and trampled bushes. Later, only a few footprints could be seen, and soon, not even that. But where they have passed, the hiding animals of the forest could be found trembling, in silence and fear, as if something big just had passed.

The fairies' wood did not trouble them further.

"Remember who you are, son."

"I remember."

After that, they found Luna Lovegood.

She sat on an old stump in the edge of the path, naked, with her long hair draped around her. She was dreamingly watching a butterfly, and didn't notice the men approaching. Not until Gregory and his father had rushed forth and seized her with their big hands. She looked up at them, in surprise, and for a moment her body tensed as if she was about to try to run for it. Then she relaxed, apparently seeing the futile in flight.

"Don't let your eyes of her," his father grunted. "A moment is all they need."

"Yeah," Gregory agreed, not taking his eyes of her golden hair, her naked breasts, the small tuft of hair between her legs or her round, childish face.

"You'll hurt me, won't you?" she asked with a melodic, somewhat faint voice and looked Goyle right in the eyes. Her eyes were big and open and he thought they were the most beautiful things he had ever seen.

"Yes, pretty, we will," Gregory's father answered and wrung her neck. The silvery eyes, for just the split of a second, became surprised. Then they were empty, and blood trickled from her mouth. Gregory let go of her and she slumped to the ground. He stared at the body in horror.

"What have we done?" he cried.

"You tell me, son," his father grunted.

For a moment, just a moment, Gregory looked at his father with defiance burning in his tear-filled eyes. Just for a moment his fists were clenched and his teeth were barred. But then he looked down at the body again and a frown formed in his forehead. He unclenched his fists and bent down. He put his big hand on her breast and held it there for a moment. He stared intently at her lifeless face. Then he turned her over.

The back of the girl was made of, rather than the smooth flesh it had seemed a moment ago, the rough bark of a tree, hollow and gray. Gregory stood up from her, pale in his face. His father watched him intently.

"Well, son?"

A deep breath, then: "A Stock. We killed a changeling."

"We can't kill what hasn't a life, but that's right. The Fair People love their little trickery, but they can't trick us who are of the Old People, right son?"

"Right."

And they went on.

They started to glimpse her after that. The real her. For a moment looking at them from a branch in a tree. Another time waving smilingly at them from the other side of a small brook. A few times dancing a carefree dance on the flowerdressed ground. Gregory couldn't help thinking that she was pretty.

The Fair People tried to trick them as best as they could. Nightly lights tried to lead them to swamps and ravines. False trails tried to lure them off the path. Fairy songs filled their ears and tried to lull them off guard. But Gregory and his father were of the Old People. They weren't fooled. And they steadily gained on their prey.

It was night, but they didn't stop to sleep. They made a short break to eat a rabbit Gregory had brought down. They ate it raw, tearing it apart with their teeth and hands, gulping down the red meat. They drank water from a stream. They barely spoke anymore - just in short grunts. They walked on all four as often as on two legs. They tasted the mud and the air. The rocks under their feet talked to them, and they listened. They walked the path of the Old People, and this forest belonged to them, just as much as to the fairies - and far more than any human could ever claim.

It was when the first rays of sunlight filtered through the green canopy above that Gregory Goyle, who was walking a bit ahead of his father, came across the girl they were hunting. She sat on an old stump, just as the Stock had done, naked and beautiful. But instead of watching butterflies, she watched him, with a thoughtful expression. He approached her, and she waved at him.

"Hello, Gregory," she dreamily said, and her voice chimed with the faint tinkle of dew and bluebells. He grunted.

"You will kill me," she stated, and he grunted again. She nodded calmly. He large, unblinking eyes gleamed with the light of stars, long forgotten. There was a faint smell of moss and spider webs around her.

"Only, I would rather live, if that is acceptable with you. You see, my friends would be rather upset if I left them, and there was something important I had to do... " she got a thoughtful frown in her face. "Only, it seems to have slipped my mind just for the moment... You don't happen to know what it was?" She looked up at the towering troll with a bright smile.

"You're Potter's secret keeper," he muttered, and she clapped her hands in delight.

"Yes, that it was. Thank you so very much for reminding me, Gregory!"

"Only, you won't be anymore, once you're dead," he reminded. She shrugged dismissively, as if that wasn't very important.

"You can't hide anymore," he rumbled, and his voice sounded like tree trunks splitting during a gale. "Not for long enough. We'll find you."

"Yes, I suppose you will," she agreed. "You are a very skilled finder, Gregory. One day, you might even find yourself, perhaps." Her words, however innocent, made a mighty string sound within him. He bawled at her, but she did not shrink back.

"I know who I am," he cried. "I'm my father's son and my grandmother's grandson. I'm of the Old People. _I know who I am._"

"That's nice," she said absentmindedly.

"Are you not afraid," he asked, not really wanting their conversation to end. "I'm here to kill you, after all.

"Yes, I know, we have already been through that," she reminded, and her slender fingers played with a golden strand of hair, twinkling of mist and dew.

"Well, aren't you?" she looked up at him, eyebrow questioningly raised.

"Would you not kill me if I was afraid? I could be afraid, then, I suppose."

"Are you not afraid of losing yourself, then?" he went on, not answering her question. "You've Danced for a long time now - far longer than you ever did at Hogwarts. What if you don't find your way back?"

"Oh, I don't know," Luna said with carefree voice. "I tried to walk the path of my father for awhile, but I wasn't very good of it. I never really got the hang of humans, to tell you the truth... Did you know that some of them used to call me Loony?" she asked with big eyes. Gregory nodded.

"I did," he rumbled. Luna didn't seemingly take any interest in this information.

"So now I thought that I would walk the path of my mother instead. To dance. To fly. To sing for the glades and the moon. It's rather nice, actually. The trees have never called me Loony even once!" She turned her large eyes straight to his, and they seemed to pulsate, ever so faintly, with a bleak light. "Have the stones ever called you thick or stupid?" she asked with curious voice, and suddenly there was a large lump in his throat, because Gregory had never really got the hang of humans, either.

"Why did you follow me?" she suddenly asked. He frowned.

"To kill you, you know." She shook her head.

"No, that is why your father followed me, and you are not your father."

"What do you know about that?" he grumbled.

"You see, back there at the Nixies, you not were thinking of your father or your friends or what that Dark Lord of yours would give to you if you succeeded, but you remembered that time in my second year when we talked in the great hall. And when you walked past the tricky path, you wondered why I went to the ministry that time to fight against the cause of your father, and when you started to Walk the Earth, you remembered when you and me stood under the moon in the forest last year... I think you were a very good dancer, actually!"

"Yeah?" Gregory asked uneasily. He didn't question that she knew these things - she _was_ of the fair people, after all - but these were feelings he hadn't admitted even for himself yet...

"And when you found the stock, you thought that it... that I..." Luna turned down her eyes, and her voice trailed off.

"Yeah, I did," Gregory confirmed, with hardly more than a whisper.

"So," she went on, and now there actually seemed to be a hint of nervousness in her voice. Her hands were absentmindedly playing with her long hair. "So... I know that you will kill me and so on, but perhaps, only if you want to of course, perhaps we could like, you know... run together, dance together and be together. You and me? If you don't have anything you'd rather like to do, of course. I think I would like that." And an ever-so-small blush could be seen on her cheeks, and she hopefully raised her head, looking straight into the boy's eyes. Gregory stared at her, and he felt a longing building up deep inside. He opened his mouth, and his father struck Luna to the ground, throwing iron over her.

"Luna!" he cried, and her name echoed through the forest, between rock and mountain. She cried out, voicelessly, under the iron, and her large eyes sought his gaze. Her face was pale and pointed. Her skin was greenish, and those large, silvery eyes made her look almost like a large insect, trapped in a spider's net with no hope of escaping. In this moment she didn't even look remotely human, but to him, she had never looked this beautiful.

"You have done well, son," his father grunted as he looked down on their captured prize, struggling in vain under the iron with tears of fear in her eyes. "The Dark Lord will be pleased with you. And so am I. Now, kill the waif, and you will be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams."

Gregory stared at him, for just a moment, and then he gripped his wand. His father chuckled with pride of his son, that was now about to be a man.

But Gregory was his father's son and his grandmother's grandson. He was of the Old People. He knew who he was.

So he stunned his father in the back.


	3. III

III.

They ran together, Goyle and Luna, under the green canopies, over the green grass. They hid together, Luna and Goyle, in the caves of the mountain, in the ponds of the forest. The wind hid their voices, the earth hid their footprints. They were all alone in the world, and no one could find them.

They wandered, the boy and the girl, through flower dressed glades. They swam in streaming brooks, the girl and the boy, and they sat hand in hand on the soft, green grass.

They ate, meat and nectar. They danced. They laughed. They bathed naked in the forest ponds. They roamed wild and free, the troll and the fairy, beneath the sky and the roots of the world. They slept together and made love under the stars, and they sang their joy to the night.

It was too good to last, so naturally it didn't.


	4. IV

IV.

The full moon rose above the forest, and the mock-wolves howled. The hounds of the Dark Lord hunted them under the green canopies, over the green grass, in the caves of the mountains. The fairy filled their noses with confusing senses and their ears with misdirection. The troll fought them, his tough skin breaking their teeth, his big hands breaking their backs.

Next came the spectres, the shadows of the Dark Lord. Black and terrible, torn from the darkness beneath the night sky, from the primal horror of all that lives. The troll bawled at them in defiance. The fairy shielded them with the delight of the summer dance, with the joy of the spring, with the happiness of the Fair People.

The men and women came, the hands of the Dark Lord. They hunted through the forest and the mountain, with masks and wands and with deadly intent. The fairy and the troll hid from them. They hid beneath the mountain. They hid in the flowers of the glades, in the sparkle of the brook. They hid in the night and in the wild, and no one ever saw the least trace of them.

Last came Vincent Crabbe. Alone and wandless. He found them by the edge of the pond, just as the sun was setting.


	5. V

V.

"Gregory," the boy cried as soon as he was within ears reach. "Gregory - it's me! Crabbe. Please, let me talk to you."

The troll was on its feet, and it lumbered slowly, watchfully, towards the small human that had sought it. He could hear the fairy sing with shrill voice, a song about flowers and earthworms, as she washed her hair in the pond and the light of the first stars.

"Greg... please," the boy whispered, his voice trailing of, because the troll was an intimidating sight indeed. He dropped to his knees and held his hands, palm upwards, to show that he was unarmed. The troll bent over him and sniffed him, uncertainly. The smell of Vincent brought back memories from a time when he walked as a human...

"...please..."

...when he had a human father and a human mother, and human friends and dreams and plans...

"...Greg?"

"Vinc?"

And the two boys hugged each other with tears streaming. Because Gregory had walked as a troll for so long, that he had almost forgot how to be a human.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, and a veil of fear fell over him. "Your family..."

"...stick with the Dark Lord," Vincent said, and his face was dark. "They kill people, and wanted me to do it as well." He sighed. "And then you disappeared."

"I walked the earth," Gregory said, and Vincent nodded.

"Yeah. I figured. They told me you had fallen out, betrayed your dad and me and Draco and... him. Told me you weren't my friend any longer."

"But I am," Gregory cried. "Always." Vincent put a soothing hand on his.

"Yeah. I know. We're always friends, just like we said when we were small. And I told dad as much, and he went livid. He called me a traitor and wanted to throw me out and..." he gulped. "...and they brought me before the Dark Lord." Gregory stared at his friends with large eyes.

"Yes, the Dark Lord," Vincent repeated. "And he cursed me and threatened me, and he ripped my mind open and there was nothing I could hide for him. I screamed and wished it to end - but it didn't."

Tears fell from Gregory's face. Human tears from human eyes.

"He told me to go to you, to find the girl you hide and to kill her, but I won't. I'll never return to him or to my family again. He can't make me do his bidding anymore."

"Stay with me, and I can hide you from him," Gregory said with a voice thick of emotions, and Vincent took his hand.

"You're my best friend, Greg. My only friend."

Hand in hand, they walked towards the pond. The setting sun coloured the sky red and purple.

"Where can you hide me, Greg, where the Dark Lord will not find me?" Vincent asked, and he watched the fairy in amazement, as she fluttered to and fro, curiously examining the human boy that had been brought to her.

"I will take you through rock and stone," Gregory answered, and his voice was like stone grinding against stone, like the weight of the roots of the mountains; because it was the voice he had got from his grandmother. "Over and under mountain, and far away from the paths of humans. You will be safe, Vinc."

"Oh, I already am," Vincent calmly said. "We don't need to go any further for _that_."

Gregory heard Luna gasp then, and when he looked up, she was trapped under iron. Vincent held his own wand in his hand, aiming it straight at his heart. An evil smirk was on his lips. Gregory felt the troll rise in him, and he opened his mouth to bawl, but a hex from his friend trapped him, as surely as the iron trapped the fairy. He growled in frustration and fear.

"You lied," Gregory accused, and his voice was filled with a bitterness he could hardly fathom. Vincent laughed.

"Lied? Why should I need to lie when the truth is so very sufficient? I _DID_ turn against my father and my Lord, and I _WAS_ sent here to fulfill the assignment you failed. But why should the Dark Lord send me without ensuring my loyality? Now, let us do what we came for, shall we?"

Gregory watched in horror as Vincent aimed with his wand straight at the fairy, who struggled in vain under the iron. But when the curse was uttered, it was not in his voice.

" Expelliarmus," cried Harry Potter.

"Acio wand," cried Ronald Weasley.

"Finite Incantatem," cried Hermione Granger, and Vincent fell to his knees, crying as a child when the Imperious Curse of the Dark Lord fell off him.

"Well done, Luna," Harry said to the fairy.

"You made brilliant!" Ron said.

"You're hurt!" Hermione cried and rushed forth.

The troll saw the human girl approach the fairy, and Gregory sprang to his feet. He threw her away as easily as if she had been a paper doll, and - ignoring the curse the humans threw at him - lifted the iron from the fairy. Immediately, the wind started to blow in the canopies. Mist rose from the pond.

"Luna! Wait," Hermione cried, and the fairy hesitated.

"You're done, Luna," Harry quickly said. "You have bought us the time we needed. The horcruxes are no more, and Voldemort is mortal once again."

"Please, don't go back to the forest," Ron anxiously said, watching the fairy nervously. "We need you in the fight. We need you to come back to us as a human."

"And you too, Goyle," Harry said to the troll. He had lowered his wand. "And Crabbe. Every single one of us needs to stand united against him."

Gregory hesitated. The blood of the Old People screamed at him to leave, to dash into the forest. But the human blood of his mother screamed at him with equal strength, told him about justice, told him about what is right, told him to take his place in the world of humans.

He turned to the fairy - to Luna - and to his surprise he saw that she watched him with a silent question in her silvery eyes, asked him to make the decision; the big, final decision all those who live in two worlds have to make sooner or later.

Crabbe had stopped crying and was watching him. Harry, Ron and Hermione were doing the same. The world was silent, waiting for him to make his choice.

So he made it.

He was Gregory Goyle, son of his father and of his mother. He was of the Old People and of the young people, and both worlds were by right his heritage. The war that was raging was by right his war, and he had fought at the wrong side for far too long. He knew who he was, and it was time for him to go out into the world and show it.

He smiled at Luna. She smiled at him.

He took her hand, her small, nimble fingers almost disappearing beneath his.


End file.
